Cinnamon Rolls in Miranda Lambert's Hometown

It was a busy weekend. I have a feeling the teachers at school paid for that today. Late nights and lots of action make for unhappy children when the grind comes back into play.

* Point of interest - we had Darby's class mascot - Elvis the bear - with us this weekend. You will see him in a lot of our pictures. Usually sporting his bathing suit or his Patriotic red/white/blue outfit selected by Darby - aka his Spider-Man costume.

We had a last minute change of plans Friday night and headed out to East Texas earlier than expected. There we met up w/ Aunt Tiffani, Mr. Matt, Tiffani's sister and her family. We weren't able to get connecting rooms, so when the kids went to bed we set up a makeshift baby monitor using FaceTime and 2 cell phones, and the adults hung out in the room across the hall. It actually worked a bit better than our old baby monitor, as I had the ability to yell at them to go to sleep without having to get up. I made good use of that function.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel. Shockingly the kids did not partake in the Texas-shaped waffles, but did make short work of cinnamon rolls and a lot of juice and bacon. Elvis joined us, but knowing he was going to spend a lot of time in his form-fitting Spider-Man costume, he chose to just watch.

Afterwards we got some snazzy new life vests at the Lindale Walmart and then went on to Aunt Tiffani's parents' lake house. The kids were poorly behaved at the Walmart, so they did not get to pet the cage full of adorable puppies in the parking lot.

At the lake, Darby made a new best friend - Penelope the dog. Penelope was very forgiving when Darby dragged her around the house and used her name about 3000 times in quick succession, and then promptly forgot it an hour later.

We had a very good time swimming in the lake. Darby was hesitant at first but once we got a system in place where she wore both her life vest and a floaty ring she was good to go, and spun endless circles in the water.  For his part, Dalton and his goggles got a good look at the bottom of the lake, since he kept swimming underwater from person to person. I don't even want to think about the lake water he must have swallowed.

The best part was the conversation with Aunt Tiff's 14 (?) year old niece Jenna, who prior to this day, wanted 4 kids. Now she thinks 2 is more than enough. Side note - we are available for rent.


Eventually we hauled out the kayaks and I polished off my rusty skills to give the kids a ride. They were a bit uneasy at first but then loved it.


We finally got out of the lake, had lunch and then the bubble wars began. Someone got us a very cool bubble gun and we got some good use out of it that day. Elvis ended up fighting off most of the bubbles. Probably not a bad thing as he likely needed a bath anyway. 


That evening we went with a bunch of people for a Mexican food dinner, and then it was time to say goodbye to East Texas.


Here they are looking like a cute little family w/ Aunt Tiff and Mr. Matt. After those pictures, Aunt Tiff and Mr. Matt went blissfully back to their quiet, peaceful lives...